First: The fact that Kevin McCarthy was ousted with the motion to vacate was not a huge surprise. The huge surprise was that within less than two hours of the vote he threw in the towel and effectively ended not only his Speakership but his political career. It’s still not clear to me whether he had key conversations during that short interlude that told him it was hopeless or that, at a basic level, he simply didn’t have the fight in him. By all accounts it was a total stunner for basically everyone in the Tuesday evening conference meeting.

Here is the chain of events as I understand them. Yesterday Matt Gaetz filed his motion to vacate. Last night then-Speaker McCarthy challenged Gaetz on Twitter to “bring it on.” Today McCarthy decided to hold the vote at the first opportunity rather than wait. It quickly became apparent McCarthy would lose the vote. He did lose the vote. Then a few hours later he told his caucus that he wouldn’t be running to get the job back. He was out for good.

His colleagues were apparently stunned by the announcement. His allies were prepping for a grueling fight to regain the Speakership. The length of time between McCarthy’s ouster and his announcement was roughly two hours. That’s enough time to have a few conversations and get the impression it’s too high a hill. But just barely. It’s hard to look at these facts and not conclude that McCarthy simply didn’t have the fight in him.

I find this both fascinating and comical. The first big collateral damage of McCarthy’s fall may be the bipartisan “problem solvers caucus”. This is the group organized by the No Labels folks. But it’s basically a centrist group with members from both parties. Axios reports that the Republicans are livid with their Democratic colleagues for letting Kevin McCarthy go down the tubes.

That did not play out how I expected. No other way to put it. Kevin McCarthy was ousted and then within hours he self-ousted. He’s out. He won’t try to win back the gavel. (Someone in that position almost inevitably leaves Congress. But that’s a story for another day.) Now the race seems – at least for the moment – fairly wide open.

The whole drama is vaguely reminiscent of the day of chaos that launched the Speakership of Denny Hastert 25 years ago. People i’ve spoken to speak of confusion, chaos, uncertainty. All of that makes sense. The one thing that stands out to me is that the supposedly most hated guy in the caucus decided to throw down the gauntlet and he won. He made a decision and McCarthy is gone. It’s very hard for me to see how that doesn’t leave if not Gaetz himself then Gaetz’s crew much more powerful than they were. The next Speaker knows the price of crossing them.

Kevin McCarthy lost the first procedural vote. It now seems almost certain that he’ll lose the real vote and be ousted from the Speakership. Then the House Clerk will reveal a letter in which McCarthy placed a list of names of people who could serve as Speaker pro tem if McCarthy could no longer serve. The first name on that list will almost certainly be a loyalist.

So we’ll have McCarthy ousted but almost certainly still determined to reclaim the chair. The temporary Speaker will be one of his loyalists. It’s unclear whether that new temporary Speaker will have to start holding elections for a new Speaker literally immediately or whether he has a bit of flexibility. That person will almost certainly make that choice in the interests of McCarthy regaining the Speakership.

Watching these speeches though you get a strong, strong sense that the overwhelming majority of Republicans not only don’t support this but are really pissed about it. I’m certainly not the audience for these speeches. But the Gaetz group’s speeches don’t seem terribly persuasive even in a Republican context – at least not to fellow members of Congress. The members speaking up for McCarthy span the whole ideological range of the caucus. Each speech basically amounts to “I wanted this cool thing but didn’t get it”. It’s Kevin McCarthy’s fault that he couldn’t get every Republican to support the Good/Bigg/Gaetz line.

The latest news suggests that Kevin McCarthy simply does not have the votes to survive today’s challenge from Matt Gaetz. In other words, he’ll lose both the first procedural vote (pretty much a foregone conclusion) and the big vote that actually removes him as Speaker. So it looks highly likely that McCarthy will be out as Speaker today. But as we’ve said, that doesn’t end the story. They still have to elect a new Speaker.

A TPM Reader asked me last night how much of this is shaking out in the way it is because Donald Trump is distracted by his trials and thus not getting involved. My initial response was that it might be playing some role. But I figured the much bigger driver is the fact that unlike his own power, his own freedom and his own money, who runs the House Republican caucus just doesn’t affect him that much. What we know about Donald Trump is that if there’s nothing in it for him he basically doesn’t care. That’s got to be a big part of it. But as today has played out I wonder whether this may be having a bigger impact than I thought.

The different parties are lining up on this Speakership showdown. House Democrats position appears unanimous and categorical. No help for McCarthy whatsoever. Every member of the caucus will vote to oust McCarthy.

A couple points.

The insider newsletters are out with updates and vote counts on Matt Gaetz’s motion to vacate. The more detailed one is Punchbowl. It has Gaetz already holding four votes including his own to oust McCarthy. Three more lean toward ouster and another five are considering it. On its face this isn’t great for McCarthy. Gaetz needs just one more vote to oust McCarthy if every member is in attendance – a non-trivial if.

There’s a lot of discussion now about whether Democrats should directly or indirectly bail out Kevin McCarthy. Many reports say it will be necessary. I thought I should add that nothing I’ve written about this topic in recent days should give the impression that anyone should be rooting for McCarthy over the Freedom Caucus. There are no good guys in this story. But some are more ridiculous than others. Matt Gaetz for one.

A few thoughts on this clown show.

First: Let’s not forget how we got here.